Constantly trying to expand my reading…genres….topics..etc…I do sometimes pick up books that aren't right up my alley. Steal the North, By Heather Brittain Bergstom, falls into this category. And I absolutely loved it.

The story is about Emmy, the high school aged child of a single mother who fled her rigid church and small town in Washington state. In the process, Emmy never got to know her maternal aunt who had cared for her when she was young. Her aunt is now trying, perhaps for the last time, to finally have a child of her own and wants Emmy to come visit for a related faith healing. Still tied to the fundamentalist church, Beth, the aunt, refuses to seek medical help in having a child.

So Emmy goes.

And falls in love with a native Indian boy while discovering religion. She also finds her mother's past and a family she adores. What will she keep and what will she need to let go?

Books like this walk a fine line in sentimentality and this one does a lovely job. The author created a world, so not my own, yet I really cared about her characters. I won't tell you how it ends but the book is so worth reading!